Carbon pollution pushed environmental breakdown to record levels in 2021

People have warped the climate so much that in 2021 oceans grew hotter, higher and more acidic than ever recorded, according to the World Meteorological Organization.


Rising sea levels have made coastal floods an existential threat for fishing villages across the world


Humanity has clogged the atmosphere with so much heat-trapping gas that four critical measures of the health of the planet broke records last year, according to a report published Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Razing forests and burning fossil fuels had already pushed the climate into a precarious state that human civilization had never previously seen. But in 2021, the State of the Climate Report 2021 found, the world broke records for greenhouse gas concentrations, while oceans grew to new heights, temperatures and levels of acidity. Extreme weather caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage as storms and wildfires strengthened by climate change tore through communities and swept away homes, fishing boats and farms.

"Years of investment in disaster preparedness means that we are better at saving lives, though economic losses are soaring," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement. "But much more needs to be done."

Climate change is making tropical cyclones stronger and more violent

Countries continue to burn fossil fuels despite warnings

In 2015, world leaders signed the Paris Agreement to try to keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century — a pledge that scientists have shown would require immediate and deep cuts to emissions.

But even as violent weather has wrought havoc on their citizens, governments from the United States to China are continuing to pour money into infrastructure to extract and burn more fossil fuels. The policies they are pursuing are set to heat the planet 2.7 C by the end of the century. Scientists expect the 1.5 C threshold will likely be crossed in a decade.

"Below those levels means manageable climate change," said Omar Baddour, a climate scientist at the WMO and lead author of the report. "Above will mean it's very difficult to manage those consequences."

Hotter average temperatures mean more waves of extreme heat

The last seven years have been the hottest seven on record, according to the WMO, a United Nations body. Last year was 1.1 C hotter than the average between 1850 and 1900. While that was slightly cooler than in some recent years — the result of natural climatic phenomenon called La Nina — it did not change the overall warming trend.

Hidden behind that increase lies a deadly worsening of extremes.

In July, scientists from the research group World Weather Attribution (WWA) found climate change had supercharged a heat wave that roasted the US and Canada weeks earlier. Many of the victims were elderly people who were unable to cool down during unnaturally warm nights in homes without air-conditioning. Had humanity not polluted the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the researchers found, the heat wave would have been 150 times less likely and 2 C cooler.

The same team also found that climate change had made heavy rains the following month in northern Europe 3-19% stronger, worsening floods that killed more than 180 people in Germany alone.

Now, an estimated 1 in 6 people on the planet are struggling through a blistering heat wave in India and Pakistan that has overwhelmed electricity grids and — particularly for outdoor workers and those with health problems — turned daily tasks like going to work and buying groceries into a gamble with fate.

The higher temperatures rise, the more people will be pushed toward the limits of adaptation

Heat wave scorches crops needed to alleviate food shortages

India's national and regional governments must immediately put together heat management plans, said Aditi Mukherji, a scientist at the International Water Management Institute. But more importantly, she added, India and other developing countries must keep the pressure on high historical emitters to immediately cut their emissions. "We simply cannot adapt to such heat waves. Mitigation is the best adaptation."

The effects are being felt beyond the Indian subcontinent. The heat wave has scorched crops in the country urgently needed to alleviate global food shortages in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. India, which is the world's second-biggest wheat producer after China, banned exports of the crop on Saturday, triggering a further rise in wheat prices. It comes on the back of a series of crises — conflict, extreme weather, economic shocks and the pandemic — that had already "undermined decades of progress" towards food security, the WMO found.

"It's deeply concerning," said Maarten Van Aalst, Director of the international Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, who contributed to the WWA analyses. "With all these compound crises, the poorest and most vulnerable are hit hardest."

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has disrupted wheat exports and raised fears of famines

Fossil fuel investments incompatible with carbon budget

In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report on climate solutions that found the pollution that would result from using existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure over their lifetimes is more than enough to cross the 1.5 C threshold. At that level of warming, a 1-in-10-year heat wave will have become 5 times more likely. A 1-in-50-year heat wave will have become 8 times more likely.

A study published in the journal Energy Research and Social Science last year found the four biggest investor-owned fossil fuel companies — Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell — were responsible for 11% of global fossil fuel and cement emissions between 1965 and 2018. The figure includes pollution that came from burning the fuels they sold.

Germany, the sixth-biggest historical polluter of greenhouse gases, has proven reluctant to kick its addiction to coal

Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP did not respond to a request for comment on their responsibility for extreme weather events made stronger by burning fuels they sold. Shell declined to comment.

Fossil fuel companies have not only caused the climate crisis but also hidden it from people and lobbied to delay action, said Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a climate activist with the Fridays for Future movement in the Philippines. The latest IPCC report, compiled by hundreds of leading scientists, found that "opposition from status quo interests" is a barrier to establishing stringent climate policies.

"People are suffering because of their greed," said Tan. "The least these companies can do is pay reparations for the losses and damages we have experienced."

Edited by: Jennifer Collins

THE WORLD IS BURNING

Russia: No sign of relief

Many regions in Russia have been burning for weeks, with the area around Yakutia in the far northeast having been hit particularly hard. The authorities have counted more than 250 fires currently burning across Russia, covering a total area of more than 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres).

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Climate change indicators hit record highs in 2021: UN

Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification all set new records last year, the UN's World Meteorological Organization says 

(AFP/NOEL CELIS) (NOEL CELIS)

Robin MILLARD
Wed, May 18, 2022

Four key climate change indicators all set new record highs in 2021, the United Nations said Wednesday, warning that the global energy system was driving humanity towards catastrophe.

Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification all set new records last year, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its "State of the Global Climate in 2021" report.

The annual overview is "a dismal litany of humanity's failure to tackle climate disruption", UN chief Antonio Guterres said.

"The global energy system is broken and bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe."


The WMO said human activity was causing planetary-scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for ecosystems.

WMO chief Petteri Taalas said the war in Ukraine had been overshadowing climate change, which "is still the biggest challenge we are having as mankind".

- Record heat -

The report confirmed the past seven years were the top seven hottest years on record.

Back-to-back La Nina events at the start and end of 2021 had a cooling effect on global temperatures last year.

Even so, it was still one of the warmest years ever recorded, with the average global temperature in 2021 about 1.11 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw countries agree to cap global warming at "well below" 2C above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 -- and 1.5C if possible.

"All major climate indicators are quite frankly heading in the wrong direction and without much greater ambition and urgency, we are about to lose the narrow window of opportunity to keep the 1.5-degree goal alive," Guterres' climate action advisor Selwin Hart told a press conference.

Taalas said the climate was changing "before our eyes".

"The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come. Sea level rise, ocean heat and acidification will continue for hundreds of years unless means to remove carbon from the atmosphere are invented," he said.

- 'Consistent picture of warming world' -

Four key indicators of climate change "build a consistent picture of a warming world that touches all parts of the Earth system", the report said.

Greenhouse gas concentrations reached a new global high in 2020, when the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached 413.2 parts per million globally, or 149 percent of the pre-industrial level.

Data indicate they continued to increase in 2021 and early 2022, the report said.

Taalas reiterated Covid-19 lockdowns had had no impact on atmospheric greenhouse gases concentrations.

Global mean sea level reached a new record high in 2021, rising an average of 4.5 millimetres per year throughout 2013 to 2021, the report said.

That is more than double the average annual rise of 2.1 mm per year between 1993 and 2002, with the increase between the two time periods "mostly due to the accelerated loss of ice mass from the ice sheets", it said.

Taalas said the melting of glaciers would raise sea levels for hundreds or thousands of years to come, due to CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

"This is a lost game already," he said.

- Price of failure -

Ocean heat hit a record high last year, exceeding the 2020 value, the report said.

And it is expected the upper 2,000 metres of the ocean will continue to warm in the future -- "a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial timescales", said the WMO.

The ocean absorbs around 23 percent of the annual emissions of human-caused CO2 into the atmosphere. While this slows the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, CO2 reacts with seawater and leads to ocean acidification.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with "very high confidence" that open ocean surface acidity is at the highest "for at least 26,000 years".

"We should take action now," Taalas told AFP.

"We are now heading 2.5 to three degrees warming instead of 1.5, which would be best for our future.

"It is better to invest in climate-friendly technologies than to live with the consequences of climate change that are going to be even 20 times more expensive if we fail."

rjm/nl/raz

The Cult of Lorenzo Dow: What a 19th-century rebel preacher owes an Anglo-Saxon monk

Joseph Brean - 

In the long-running annual series Oh, The Humanities! the National Post surveys academic scholarship at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which is entirely virtual this year, from May 12-20.

© Provided by National PostLorenzo Dow, a Methodist preacher who was born in 1777 and died in 1834, was more famous in death than in life.

The stereotypical image of the charismatic cult figurehead has gone through many tweaks and transformations over the centuries, from the desert hermit and the otherworldly mystic to the doomsday technofuturist and the apocalyptic soothsayer.

Each time a new movement arises around a charismatic preacher, it draws on the cultural shapes of those who came before, sometimes long before, especially the most historically influential of these figures: the carpenter from Roman Judea, the ascetic aristocrat from northern India, the trader from Mecca.

Scott McLaren, a cultural historian at York University and co-editor of the Historical Papers of the Canadian Society of Church History, got to wondering about this consistent power of a single person in his work on Lorenzo Dow, a wild-haired rebel visionary miracle worker Methodist preacher in early 19th century Connecticut who travelled America and Britain and became a saintly figure after his death on the strength of a popular autobiography.

McLaren drew a curious connection. He noted how similar Dow’s popular fate was to that of Saint Cuthbert, the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian monk and hermit famous for healing miracles who became both a figure of veneration and a source of northern English political identity for centuries after his death, as he remains today.

Both were admired in life, but rose steeply in esteem after death. In both cases, spookily, their bodies were disinterred long after they died and were reportedly found incorrupt.

Read more from the Post's 'Oh, The Humanities!' series

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In Cuthbert’s case, when his coffin was opened more than a decade after his death in 687, his body was incorrupt, according to the 8th century English historian Bede. The same thing is said to have happened when it was opened again in 1104.

In Dow’s case, when they dug him up after 40 years in 1874 at Holmead Burying Ground in Washington, D.C., for reburial at nearby Oak Hill Cemetery, his long white beard “rested whole on his chest and much of his clothing was still preserved intact,” according to a new paper by McLaren, presented Tuesday at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

In the tangled cultural traditions of charismatic preachers, that is no simple coincidence. In humanities scholarship, it rarely is. The new recapitulates the old. This tale of the incorrupt body suggested the cult of Lorenzo Dow was a 19th century New World Protestant reprise of the more famous medieval devotional movement focused on Cuthbert.

American Methodists who admired Dow were not consciously trying to imitate Northumbrian devotional practices of late antiquity. On the contrary. Dow himself was firmly opposed to, as McLaren describes it, the “wild liturgical excesses of Roman Catholicism.” But somehow it happened, thanks to what McLaren calls a “perennial human need for heroes.”

A “kind of cult came to surround his memory — a cult that was, for many practical purposes, not unlike the cults that grew up around Roman Catholic saints all across Europe and that were founded on a rich tradition of hagiography,” McLaren wrote.

“What does it mean that 19th and early 20th-century evangelicals wanted — but could not quite manage in the shadow of their own theologies — to turn Lorenzo Dow into a saint after the pattern of those medieval holy men and women who were venerated across the centuries? Perhaps there is a deep-seated human desire, one that no amount of theology can entirely overcome, to create towering figures that loom like colossi over the wreck and woe of a fallen world and a broken humanity.”

Both men were famous in their time, but it was only after their death that their reputations really took off.

Cuthbert was also said to have performed miracles, including putting out a fire with prayer, and stilling the wind to save a group of monks on rafts from being blown out to sea.

Dow was a study in gothic. He laid a curse on a town in Georgia, Jacksonboro, that remains a ghost town today, after he was banned from preaching there. This story, like the rest, is doubtlessly embellished and exaggerated, McLaren writes, which Dow himself “would somehow approve.”

He was also something of a grifter, who once paid a boy to climb a tree with a trumpet and blow it on his secret signal, spooking the crowd as if judgment were at hand.

It was unusual for American evangelicals to fixate so much on one man, but as McLaren noticed, old habits die hard.

“Christians for centuries practised a spirituality rooted in the cult of the saints until the veneration of such figures was finally forbidden by Protestant reformers who objected as much to Catholicism’s narrow definition of sainthood as they did to the soaring depictions of such men and women in oil and glass across the whole length and breadth of medieval Christendom,” McLaren wrote.

What that meant in 19th century America was that Lorenzo Dow remained on the outs with his own Methodist Conference, viewed skeptically for his “irregular conduct.”

“Dow’s perennial conflict with authority, combined with his unkempt appearance, refusal to observe social norms, and willingness to single out and castigate specific sinners by name meant that, while some revered him, others loathed him,” McLaren wrote.

This was an early version of an American pop cultural superstar people love to hate. McLaren sees a lesson here for historians about their reluctance to emphasize the famous and infamous, and their preference for broader impersonal social analysis.

“When history finally denies us our heroes, we find ourselves resorting to those fictional worlds where we can at least have superheroes,” McLaren concluded. Like Cuthbert, Dow became “a religious celebrity.”

India: Is it time to declare marital rape a crime?

The recent failure of an Indian court to deliver a clear verdict criminalizing marital rape has highlighted the public divide on the issue.



Marital rape is a crime in most countries worldwide but India remains among the 30-odd nations where it is not criminalized

Last week, a two-judge bench of the Delhi High Court delivered a split verdict on petitions seeking to criminalize marital rape in India, in a setback for women's rights groups that have long campaigned for its criminalization.

While one judge struck down Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which says a man cannot be prosecuted for rape within marriage, the other judge disagreed and upheld the provision.

Favoring criminalization, Justice Rajiv Shakdher said the section violated Article 14 of the Indian constitution — which guarantees equality before the law — and therefore should be struck down.

"The right to withdraw consent at any given point in time forms the core of the woman's right to life and liberty," he said in his order.

Justice Hari Shankar, however, disagreed and said the provision does not violate any law and the exception was "reasonable" and could continue.

The case is now expected to be appealed in the Supreme Court.

How did women's rights organizations react?

The split judgment drew widespread criticism from women's rights organizations.

"The judge is saying that even if the husband has sex with the wife without the latter's consent, he cannot he considered her rapist since this would call into question the sacred nature of the marriage institution. This is bizarre reasoning," Kavita Krishnan of the All-India Progressive Women's Association told DW.

"Does a woman have to surrender her dignity and bodily autonomy when she marries? Does she become the property of her husband? This judgment, while not surprising, is nevertheless shameful," she added.

Priya Kumari, a lawyer, shares a similar view.

"To think that criminalizing the provision would be misused and sabotage the institution of marriage, is outdated and flawed," she told DW.

Mariam Dhawale, national general secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) and one of the petitioners in the case, said she was dejected with the split verdict.

"We will appeal against the marital rape exemption, an archaic law which came into being 160 years ago," Dhawale told DW.

Promoting gender equality in India by focusing on boys

Opposition from government and religious groups

The verdict has highlighted the public divide on an issue that involves not just the letter of the law but complex social customs.

During the hearings in court, both the Delhi government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's federal government argued that marital rape could not be criminalized unless there is societal consensus on the issue.

The government said criminalization could have a "destabilizing effect on the institution of marriage."

Religious groups and men's rights activists have also opposed the petitions, saying it could be misused to harass men by leveling frivolous charges.
What do men's rights groups say?

"Clearly, a binary and monochromatic approach to such a complex issue does grave injustice," J Sai Deepak, a lawyer representing Men Welfare Trust, one of the NGOs opposing the criminalization, told DW.

"Critically, it is evident from a reading of both opinions that there is need for greater empirical data on the subject, in addition to collection of inputs from a wide array of stakeholders," he added.

"To my mind, the legislature, and not a court of law, is best suited to undertake such an exercise."

Men Welfare Trust is a Delhi-based NGO, comprising a team of volunteers, focused on dealing with issues such as the victimization of men and their families due to misuse of gender-based laws.

"This is not the concern of the court. All stakeholders must be consulted and if this was criminalized it would have set a wrong precedent," a MWT member said.
Verdict reveals 'a patriarchal mindset'

Marital rape is a crime in most countries worldwide but India remains among the 30-odd nations where it is not criminalized.

Since it is not a crime, the National Crime Records Bureau does not maintain any separate statistics on marital rape.

However, more than 30% of women in India who have ever been married, have experienced spousal physical, sexual, or emotional violence, according to the latest round of the National Family Health Survey.

"The verdict reveals just one glaring fact and that is the patriarchal mindset," women's rights activist Ritu Kaushik said. "Talking of women's empowerment or rights is all a sham when this is the thinking that prevails."

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

Climate-stricken world needs renewables Marshall Plan: UN chief
Author: AFP|

Update: 18.05.2022

Renewable technologies should be treated as freely available 'global public goods', unconstrained by intellectual property, UN chief Antonio Guterres says / © AFP/File

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday outlined what amounts to a global Marshall Plan for ushering in a world powered by renewable energy rather than coal, gas and oil.

To avoid catastrophic climate change, humanity must "end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition, before we incinerate our only home," he said in prerecorded remarks timed to coincide with the release of a major UN state-of-climate report.

Renewable technologies should be treated as freely available "global public goods", unconstrained by intellectual property, he said.

One option might be so-called patent pooling, as has been done by major drug companies to speed the delivery of life-saving drugs for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, noted a senior UN official who asked not to be named.

"The Secretary-General believes that the conversation around intellectual property should happen because we are in a crisis," the UN official said.

"If we have a ready solution, why not relax intellectual property rules so that solution can help us solve this crisis?"

Guterres singled out battery storage, calling for an international coalition of industry, tech companies and financial institutions, led by governments, to "fast-track innovation and deployment".

Solar and wind are the fastest growing clean energy technologies, but storing renewable electricity that can only be generated when the sun is shining or the wind blowing has been a persistent bottleneck for even more rapid rollout.

- Not fast enough -

It was unclear whether Guterres envisions a new oversight body or favours working through existing structures, such as the 86-nation International Solar Alliance or the G20 group of major economies.

The UN chief's five-point plan to "jump-start" a renewables boom also called for scaling-up and diversifying the supply of critical components and raw materials, such as rare Earth metals.

Currently, lithium -- crucial to the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries -- is sourced from a handful of countries, with China controlling 80 percent of global refining, according to BloombergNEF.

Transitioning to clean energy will also require far greater supplies of copper, silicon, nickel, cobalt and other elements that are scarce and/or in high demand.

Europe alone is estimated to need 35 times more lithium than it uses today over the next three decades.

Expanding renewable capacity is forecast to account for almost 95 percent of the increase in global electricity through 2026, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

But projected growth is not nearly fast enough to ensure the Paris Agreement target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Currently, solar and wind energy only account for eight percent of global electricity generation. Adding hydro and other renewable sources pushes the total up to 30 percent, with coal and gas still dominant overall.

- $11 million -

Guterres also said governments must cut red tape and streamline approvals for solar and wind projects.

The IEA has identified the issuing of permits and grid integration as major barriers to accelerating renewables deployment.

"In Europe, it takes eight years for a wind project to be approved," the UN official said.

"In the United States, I understand that it can take as much as a decade at the federal level alone, where one needs to go through about 28 federal agencies."

The UN Secretary-General also called for an end to approximately half-a-trillion dollars in fossil fuel subsidies, roughly two-thirds of which go to consumers and the rest directly to industry.

"Every minute of every day, coal, oil and gas receive roughly $11 million in subsidies," Guterres said.

"While people suffer from high prices at the pump, the oil and gas industry is raking in billions from a distorted market," he added. "This scandal must stop."

Finally, Guterres challenged private and public finance to scale up investment in solar and wind to at least $4 trillion a year, more than triple current levels.

Development banks and finance institutions should align their lending portfolios with the Paris treaty temperature targets by 2024, he said.

UN chief Antonio Guterres calls for renewables push following damning climate report

The UN chief has called for more investment in renewables and an end to the millions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuels. Several climate indicators broke troubling records last year.



Wind and solar energy currently account for just 8% of global electricity generation

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres released a five-point plan on Wednesday aimed at boosting investments in renewable energies. His message coincided with the publication of the World Meteorological Organization's Climate Report for 2021.

"We must end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition before we incinerate our only home," the UN chief said in his pre-recorded message. "Time is running out."

Wednesday's report showed that critical climate indicators all broke records last year and that the last seven years were the hottest on record.

"Today's State of the Climate report is a dismal litany of humanity's failure to tackle climate disruption," Guterres said.
What is Guterres' five-point plan?

His plan focused on increasing the spread of renewable technologies, along with greater investments, as well as ending subsidies for fossil fuels.

He called for public and private investments in renewables to be tripled to at least $4 trillion a year.

The plan would also require governments to lift intellectual property protections on renewable technologies to increase access to them, as well as to open up supply chains of materials necessary for such technology which are currently controlled by just a few key players.

Guterres also pleaded with governments to end subsidies for fossil fuels that currently amount to half a trillion dollars per year, while also promoting renewable energies. He said fossil fuel companies were getting rich while consumers were paying the price.

"While people suffer from high prices at the pump, the oil and gas industry is raking in billions from a distorted market," he said.

Trajectories not on target

Even though renewable energies are expected to source most of the growing electricity demands in the coming years, the rate of growth is nowhere near fast enough to keep global temperatures below the 1.5 degrees Celsius increase over pre-industrial levels as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

Renewables currently provide just 30% of global electricity generation, with fossil fuel energies still dominating.

Guterres pointed to red tape as one of the key obstacles to the growth of renewable energies, as well as subsidies that end up promoting fossil fuels.

"In Europe, it takes eight years for a wind project to be approved," he said. "In the United States, I understand that it can take as much as a decade at the federal level alone, where one needs to go through about 28 federal agencies."

"Every minute of every day, coal, oil and gas receive roughly $11 million in subsidies," he added.

Australian election could end country's climate change inaction

Flood and drought-stricken Australia votes on Saturday. As a major exporter of coal and one of the world's worst CO2 emitters per capita, the result will be decisive for global climate goals.


Australians want action on climate change, but major parties have hardly mentioned the issue in their election campaigns

The results of the Australian election this Saturday will set the climate agenda for one of the planet's worst per-capita CO2 emitters. It comes as the world faces a rapidly closing window to stop the most severe impacts of climate change.

The country, dubbed a "wrecker" at climate change negotiations, is a major exporter of fossil fuels, largely to East Asia and India. It has been criticized for grossly insufficient climate targets by the UK and US as well as its neighboring Pacific nations who could see their homes disappear as sea levels rise.

At the same time, polls clearly show voters back stronger climate action in the "sunburned land," having already experienced deadly and costly flooding and wildfires linked to climate change in recent years. The country is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis.

"Australians are feeling and seeing climate damage now and that's why most Australians are very worried about climate change and want the government to do a lot more than they are," said Kelly O'Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

Despite public support, the major parties vying for votes in the tight election have barely mentioned the issue in their campaigns, said Peter Christoff, senior research fellow with Melbourne Climate Futures, which is part of the University of Melbourne.

"And that's really quite concerning and worrying," said Christoff.


Wildfires in 2021: Australians are already feeling the effects of the climate crisis
Coal lobby pushing against climate protection policies

Since 2007, Australia's two major parties, the center-left Labor Party and the conservative Liberal Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison, have been in an open war over climate change policies, leading to multiple leaders being toppled.

"The public vitriol in political exchanges — particularly over an emissions trading scheme and a price on carbon and carbon taxes — led to some of the ugliest politics we've seen in Australia over a 15-year period," said Christoff.

Labor believes it lost the supposedly unlosable "climate election" in 2019 to the Liberals because of a backlash against its strong climate policies and job fears in key seats in coal-mining areas.

Australia is the world's second biggest coal exporter. And because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rising coal prices mean Australia will likely earn 100 billion Australian dollars (€67 billion, $70 billion) in one year from coal.

Meanwhile, between 100,000 and 300,000 Australian jobs connected to coal, oil and gas are at risk if the country doesn't prepare for the shift away from fossil fuels, according to a study by independent Australian think tank, the Centre for Policy Development.

Major parties weak on climate

To date, the conservatives have stymied significant action on climate change — blocking a major emissions trading scheme, slashing funding on climate research, subsidizing and allowing fossil fuel production to expand and abolishing the government-funded Climate Commission.

At the 2021 UN climate conference in Glasgow, the government refused to budge from its 2030 emission cuts of 26% to 28% on 2005 levels — one of the weakest targets in the developed world. The UN Climate Action Tracker rates Australia's emissions and net-zero targets as "poor" and "highly insufficient," putting it on a path to more than 3 degrees Celsius warming.

Going into the 2022 election, the Liberal Party pledged to go net-zero by 2050, but has given itself scope to ignore this. At the same time, it has vowed to continue exports of Australia's coal and gas past 2050 and has included these fossil fuels in its domestic energy blueprint.

Labor — currently forecast to win this election— has also vowed to go net-zero by 2050 and has stronger emission cuts of 43% by 2030. It has pledged tens of billions of dollars to revitalize the nation's energy grid and install solar banks and batteries. But it says it won't stop exporting coal and gas.

Anthony Albanese's Labor Party look set to win

A new climate force in the country?

Australia is dominated by two main parties, but by dragging their heels on climate change Labor and the Liberals have opened the door to new challengers.

A group of independents, dubbed "the teals," are competing with Liberal lawmakers for urban seats. Mostly women, they receive funding from a group called Climate 200 — a relatively new political fund established by clean energy investor Simon Holmes a Court — and have campaigned on climate, integrity, and gender equality. They have all set ambitious 2030 emission reduction targets ranging from 50% to 70% by 2030.

And they appear to be attracting moderate Liberal voters who have become disillusioned with a lack of movement on climate change. Most recent polling shows several key seats are at risk.

Meanwhile, the Greens have enjoyed a surge and are now polling at about 15% nationally — compared to 10% in the 2019 election. They have pledged to cut emissions by 75% by 2030, go net-zero by 2035, phase out the mining, burning and exporting of coal by 2030 and convert the grid to 100% renewables.

Depending on the result of the election, both the Greens and the teal candidates could wield significant power over the government.

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg may lose his seat to a climate-friendly independent

Business calling for climate action, huge potential for renewables

Businesses are also calling for more action. In one example, Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes is attempting to use his wealth to force energy giant AGL to exit coal-fired power generation.

Even the Business Council of Australia — which represents big banks and corporations, such as industrial and retail giant Wesfarmers, mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto and airline Qantas — is now also calling for major emission cuts by 2030. It's a dramatic shift for the organization that in 2018 called 45% emissions reduction cuts "an economy wrecking target."

"It's certainly not the community that is holding back the Australian political parties on climate action and also not the business community," ACF's O'Shanassy said. "Everyone wants climate action except for the people that go to Parliament House."

But neither Labor nor the Liberals' targets are enough to bring Australia in line with its Paris Commitments. Emissions cuts of at least 50% by 2030 are what's required to keep it below the upper threshold of 2 degrees warming and about 75% for the 1.5-degree target, according to some estimates.

ACF believes the next government should take advantage of the country's huge solar and wind potential and could quickly cut emissions while preserving jobs by replacing fossil fuel exports with products created with renewable energy such as hydrogen and ammonia.

"We need to use the vast amount of renewable energy we have in this country. We need to times it by about ten and then turn that into exports and stop exporting pollution to the world," O'Shanassy said. "That would be our greatest contribution to climate change."

Conservatives tipped to lose in Australian nail-biter election




Many voters are expected to support candidates unaffiliated with the traditional left-right parties (AFP/Saeed KHAN)

Andrew BEATTY
Tue, May 17, 2022, 11:18 PM·5 min read

Australians punch drunk after three crisis-ridden years of fire, flood and plague will go to the polls on Saturday, in a tight race narrowly tipped to end a decade of conservative rule.

Opinion polls have consistently shown centre-left Labor ahead, suggesting a government led by veteran party lawmaker Anthony Albanese that would be more climate-friendly and less antagonistic toward China.

But pugilistic Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who leads a conservative coalition, appears to be rapidly closing the gap as election day approaches.

The often-acrimonious campaign has been marked by fears about soaring prices, divisions over Morrison's leadership and anxiousness about tougher days to come.

The last three years have seen Australia's once-envied way of life upended by back-to-back bushfires, droughts, the Covid-19 pandemic and several "once-in-a-century" floods.

Australians -- usually some of the world's most optimistic voters -- have grown markedly more dissatisfied with their lives, more pessimistic about their future and more turned off by traditional political parties, according to polling by Ipsos.

For many Aussies, their unofficial mantra of gung-ho optimism -- "she'll be right" -- suddenly seems a bit wrong.

"It has been a very difficult period for the country," said Mark Kenny, a professor at the Australian National University.

"There's a fair bit of dissatisfaction with this government, and the prime minister's standing has been called into question quite a lot."

Surveys show the malaise is pronounced among women and younger voters, who face the prospect of being poorer than their parents while inheriting a country at the pointy end of climate change and located in an increasingly tough neighbourhood.

- Lurching from crisis to crisis -

Just over 17 million Australians are registered to go to the polls on Saturday, electing 151 representatives to the lower house and just over half the members of the Senate.

Voting is compulsory and voters rank the candidates in order of preference, adding extra layers of unpredictability to the outcome.

Fifty-four-year-old Morrison is hoping for a repeat of his 2019 "miracle" come-from-behind election victory. But he will have to overcome the collective trauma of the last three years.

Within months of his shock victory, the "Black Summer" bushfires would cut through the east of the country, burning an area the size of Finland and choking Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in a miasma of acrid smoke for weeks on end.

Morrison's decision to take a family holiday to Hawaii in the middle of the crisis was widely pilloried, as was his downplaying of the affair by saying "I don't hold a hose, mate."

No sooner had the fires ended than the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Morrison's popularity initially surged as Australians watched the horrors unfolding in China, Italy and elsewhere from a state of Covid-free normalcy on Bondi and other beaches.

The turning point was the lengthy delay in rolling out vaccines, despite Morrison's promises that Australia was at the "front of the queue", said Ben Raue of The Tally Room, a popular political blog.

The delay prolonged lockdowns in major cities and a two-year-long border closure -- splitting families and gaining Australia a reputation for being a "hermit state" isolated from the rest of the world.

"That was the point when Morrison went from being a little bit behind, to being quite a long way behind" in the polls, said Raue.

"They've never really recovered since then. They've had some better polls and some worse polls, but they've pretty much never been ahead."

- Playground taunts -

Albanese, a 59-year-old veteran Labor lawmaker, has tried to make the election a referendum on Morrison's performance.

His own "small target" campaign has given Morrison and Australia's partisan media few policies to shoot at, but also left voters guessing at what an Albanese-led government might bring.

The contest has been rough and tumble, highly personal and at times bordering on juvenile.

The Liberal party has splashed adverts claiming "it won't be easy with Albanese", and has repeatedly suggested he is dangerous and a "loose unit" on the economy.

Labor has hit back, imploring Australians to "fire the liar".

Around a third of voters are expected to look beyond traditional left and right parties as their first preference.

They can choose from an array of populists, the far-right and centrist independent candidates angered by the Liberals' pro-coal stance on climate.

"There's an absolute sense that Liberal voters who sit near the centre, who are perhaps economic conservatives and social progressives, that they've been left in the wilderness," Zoe Daniel, an independent candidate challenging one Melbourne constituency, told AFP.

- From flip-flops to bootstraps -

In the latter stages of the campaign, the focus has turned to the soaring cost of living in what was already one of the world's most expensive places to live.

Despite presiding over a record deficit, the first recession in a generation and sclerotic wage growth, Morrison's ability to reinvent his image and reframe the debate has kept his party well within touching distance.

One poll commissioned by The Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday predicted a Labor win, but put his re-election within the margin of error.

There is a perception Morrison's attacks on Albanese's "dangerous" economic plan may be starting to stick.

"I think there's a sense of change in this country. The question is, has the opposition done enough to convince people that change is a safe option?" said Kenny.

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EXPLAINER: What we know about shuttered baby formula plant

An Abbott Laboratories manufacturing plant is shown in Sturgis, Mich., on Sept. 23, 2010. In mid-February 2022, Abbott announced it was recalling various lots of three powdered infant formulas from the plant, after federal officials began investigating rare bacterial infections in four babies who got the product. Two of the infants died. But it's not certain the bacteria came from the plant; strains found at the plant didn't match the two available samples from the babies.

 (Brandon Watson/Sturgis Journal via AP, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — At the center of the nationwide baby formula shortage is a single factory: Abbott Nutrition’s plant that has been closed for more than three months because of contamination problems.

On Monday, U.S. officials announced a deal with Abbott that paves the way to restart production at the Sturgis, Michigan, facility, the largest in the U.S. and source of leading brands like Similac.

But it’s not yet clear how soon the site will be up and running. And even bigger questions remain unanswered, including what caused the contamination and whether U.S. regulators could have alleviated the current formula shortage by stepping in sooner. The plant shutdown exacerbated ongoing supply chain problems among U.S. formula makers.

WHAT CAUSED THE SHUTDOWN?

In mid-February, Abbott announced it was recalling various lots of three powdered infant formulas from the plant, after federal officials began investigating rare bacterial infections in four babies who were fed formula. Two of the infants died. But it’s not certain the bacteria came from the plant; strains found at the plant didn’t match the two available samples from the babies.

The company halted production while Food and Drug Administration inspectors conducted a six-week investigation of the plant.

A preliminary report released in March found traces of a bacteria — cronobacter— on several surfaces throughout the plant, though not in areas used to make the powder. Plant records showed Abbott had detected the bacteria eight times in its products or facility since 2019.

Inspectors also flagged other problems, including standing water on the floor and employees who didn’t properly sanitize their hands.

WHAT IS CRONOBACTER?

The bacteria occurs naturally in soil, water and other parts of the environment. Infections with cronobacter are rare but can be fatal in babies. Almost all previous outbreaks in the U.S. have been linked to powdered baby formulas, which don’t undergo the same high temperatures used to kill germs in many other foods.

Sometimes the bacteria can get into powdered formula after its opened at home if a dirty scoop is used or it is mixed with water that’s contaminated with the germ, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cronobacter typically causes fever in infants and can sometimes lead to dangerous blood infections or swelling of the brain.

The four reported illnesses were in Minnesota, Ohio and Texas between September and January.

WHAT ROLE DID ABBOTT’S FORMULA PLAY IN THE ILLNESSES?

It’s still not yet clear. The FDA hasn’t released a final ruling on the problems at the plant and whether they are linked to the infections.

“There are many factors involved in this ongoing investigation and we’re just not in a position to make any definitive statement,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said Monday..

Food safety experts say the case underscores the challenges of tracing foodborne illnesses.

Because there were only two samples collected from the four cases, “Right from the get-go we were limited in our ability,” to link the baby formula to the illnesses, said the FDA’s food director Susan Mayne. “We simply don’t have the evidence to demonstrate that causality.”

Abbot says the lack of a strain match indicates “there is no evidence to link our formulas to these infant illnesses.”

SHOULD THE FDA HAVE STEPPED IN SOONER?

The FDA is facing intense scrutiny about what steps it took — and didn’t — in the months before the recall.

FDA inspectors visited the factory in late September for a routine inspection, around the time that the first bacterial infection was reported in Minnesota. Although inspectors uncovered several violations— including standing water and unsanitary conditions — they didn’t find any bacteria and let the plant stay open. It’s unclear if inspectors were even aware of the first reported illness.

After three more cases were reported, the FDA returned to the plant in January and detected the bacteria.

The FDA mainly focuses on assuring the safety of the food supply, with extra regulations and standards on foods for babies and children. But former FDA officials say the agency is supposed to consider potential shortages that result from shutting down plants.

In previous cases, the FDA has worked with companies to shift production to other facilities or find alternative supplies.

The FDA is doing that now under a new policy that eases imports of baby formula from foreign manufacturers. But both the agency and the White House are facing questions on why that step wasn’t taken sooner.

“We always believe we can do better in terms of the time frame,” Califf said.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., reported last month that a whistleblower had contacted the FDA in October with allegations about unsafe conditions and practices at the plant, including falsifying plant records and failing to properly test formula for contamination. She said the FDA did not interview the whistleblower until late December. Califf is scheduled to answer questions from DeLauro and other lawmakers on Thursday.

WHEN WILL THE PLANT RESTART PRODUCTION?

Both the FDA and Abbott say they are working as quickly as possible to restart manufacturing at the plant. But FDA officials say the onus is on Abbott to demonstrate its Michigan plant meets rigorous safety standards.

Former FDA officials say fixing the type of problems uncovered at Abbott’s plant takes time, and infant formula facilities receive more scrutiny than other food types. Companies need to exhaustively clean the facility and equipment, retrain staff, repeatedly test and document that there is no contamination.

Even after the facility opens, Abbott says it will take eight-to-ten weeks before new products start shipping to stores. The company continues to produce baby formula at its other plants in the U.S. and overseas.

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Follow Matthew Perrone on Twitter: @AP_FDAwriter

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Defense officials: Reports of unidentified objects 'frequent, continuing'

The Milky Way is seen above the Cerro Tololo Observatory near La Serena, Chile. A congressional hearing on Tuesday was scheduled to hear expert testimony regarding "unidentified aerial phenomena." File Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo

May 17 (UPI) -- Pentagon officials told a House panel Tuesday that reports of "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" are getting more frequent -- and there is not always a ready explanation.

In an open session of the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, Defense Under Secretary Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Navy Intelligence Scott Bray showed short videos of objects encountered by U.S. military that remained undefined.

They said some of the reports by service members have turned out to be classified experimental technology by the military, civilian assets such a drones or previously unknown technology by adversaries.

But the said some sightings don't fall in any of those categories, with objects appearing to move and at speeds that defied known modern physics. While some are simply eyewitness accounts, others have been recorded by radar and other instruments.

"Since the beginning of 2000s, we have seen an increasing number of unauthorized or unidentified aircraft or objects in military-controlled training areas and training ranges and other designated airspace," Bray told the committee. "Reports of sightings are frequent and continuing."

Bray deferred to talk about many of those incidents in an open session because the technology used to record the objects is classified.

Moultrie and Bray said there has been more reports of UAPs by military personnel because of better technology, and more people feel more comfortable reporting it because of the seriousness of the work. They said fewer service members feel stigmatized by reporting UAPs.

Bray assured the subcommittee that its work into UAPs carries serious risk and responsibility to the Pentagon, where officials work to stay on top of new technology developed by adversaries.

"Incursions within our training ranges by unidentified objects represents serious hazards to safety of flight," Bray said. "In every aspect of naval aviation, the safety of our crews is paramount. Second, intrusions by unknown aircraft of objects pose potential threats to the security of our operations."

Moultrie oversees the Pentagon's Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, which was established by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and is tasked with detecting identifying and attributing "objects of interest in special use airspace and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security."

The same provision requires Pentagon officials to issue regular classified and public reports to oversight committees on new UAP incidents.

A June 2021 report from the team's predecessor, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, concluded there wasn't enough information to draw conclusions about 143 of 144 reports of UAP that had been submitted by government sources between 2004 and 2021. The one that was explained involved a large, deflating balloon.

The report noted "unusual" aerial activity on several of the reported incidents but did not rule out the possibility that they were caused by "sensor errors, spoofing or observer misperception." It added that "rigorous" further analysis was required in those cases.

Tuesday's was the first open hearing on UFOs in Congress in more than a half-century. The Air Force, following a public investigation known as Project Blue Book, concluded in 1969 that no UFO had ever threatened national security, that objects it studied did not display technology beyond what was presently known and that no evidence indicated any of the reported objects were extraterrestrial in nature.

Fossilized tooth proves extinct Denisovans lived in southeast Asia


An ancient tooth found in southeast Asia links extinct Denisovans to modern day humans, according to findings published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. A close-up of the 3D printed reconstruction of a female Denisovan. File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

May 17 (UPI) -- A fossilized tooth dug from a mountain cave in northern Laos is the first evidence to show the extinct human species, the Denisovans, lived in southeast Asia.

Scientists published their findings Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications and said the large ancient molar, found in Cobra Cave, appears to be from a young Denisovan girl who died between 164,000 and 131,000 years ago.

"We've always assumed that Denisovans were in this part of the world, but we've never had the physical evidence," said study co-author Laura Shackelford, a paleoanthropolotist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "This is one little piece of evidence that they were really there."


RELATED Scientists use Neanderthal genes to grow tissue in a Petri dish

Denisovan teeth and finger bones were first discovered in Siberia and Tibet in 2010. DNA testing revealed these extinct hominids interbred with Neanderthals and modern humans, and are among the ancestors to current populations in Australia and the Pacific. But until now, scientists could not track the ancient species to the area.

Tuesday's published discovery of a Denisovan fossilized tooth in southeast Asia provides the geographical link between these ancient hominids and people living today.

It also shows the Denisovans occupied a wide range of areas and were able to adapt to different climates. It shows that 131,000 years ago the Denisovans could survive in temperate conditions as well as frigid temperatures, making them more similar to our own species.

RELATED Earliest evidence of hominin interbreeding revealed by DNA analysis

University of Toronto researcher Bence Viola said the molar was in the "right place and right time" to belong to a Denisovan. "In its size, it is comparable to hominins that lived two or three million years ago... but the age of it shows that it is very recent."

Scientists were convinced five years ago there were Denisovan fossils in southeast Asia.

"The genetic data shows that these guys were spread over large parts of Asia, so we must have them," Viola said in 2017.

Child’s 130,000-year-old tooth could offer clues to extinct human relative

Researchers believe the discovery in a Laos cave proves that Denisovans lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia

A view of the molar thought to belong to a young female child from the extinct human species called the Denisovans, was found in cave Tam Ngu Hao in northeastern Laos.
Photograph: Fabrice Demeter/Reuters

Agence France-Presse

Tue 17 May 2022

A child’s tooth at least 130,000 years old found in a Laos cave could help scientists uncover more information about an early human cousin, according to a new study.

Researchers believe the discovery proves that Denisovans – a now-extinct branch of humanity – lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia.

Very little is known about the Denisovans, a cousin of Neanderthals.

Scientists first discovered them while working in a Siberian cave in 2010 and finding a finger bone of a girl belonging to a previously unidentified group of humans.

Using only a finger and a wisdom tooth found in the Denisova Cave, they extracted an entire genome of the group.

Researchers then found a jawbone in 2019 on the Tibetan Plateau, proving that part of the species lived in China as well.

Aside from these rare fossils, the Denisovans left little trace before disappearing – except in the genes of human DNA today.

Through interbreeding with Homo sapiens, Denisovan remnants can be found in current populations in southeast Asia and Oceania.

Aboriginal Australians and people in Papua New Guinea have up to five percent of the ancient species’ DNA.

Scientists concluded “these populations’ modern ancestors were ‘mixed’ with Denisovans in southeast Asia”, said Clement Zanolli, a paleoanthropologist and co-author of the study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.

But there was no “physical proof” of their presence in this part of the Asian continent, far from the freezing mountains of Siberia or Tibet, the researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research told AFP.

This was the case until the group of scientists began searching in the Cobra Cave in northeast Laos.

Cave specialists discovered the area in a mountain in 2018 next to Tam Pa Ling Cave, where the remains of ancient humans have already been found.

The tooth immediately appeared to have a “typically human” shape, explained Zanolli.

The study said, based on ancient proteins, the tooth belonged to a child, likely female, aged between 3.5 and 8.5 years old.

But the tooth is too old for carbon-dating, and the DNA has been badly preserved because of heat and humidity, said paleoanthropologist and study co-author Fabrice Demeter.

After analysing the shape of the tooth, scientists reckon it was most likely a Denisovan who lived between 164,000 to 131,000 years ago.

They then studied the tooth’s interior through different methods including analysing proteins and a 3D X-ray reconstruction.


'Spectacular' jawbone discovery sheds light on ancient Denisovans

The tooth’s internal structure was similar to that of the molars found in the Tibetan Denisova specimen. It was clearly distinguishable from modern humans and other ancient species that lived in Indonesia and the Philippines.

“The proteins allowed us to identify the sex – female – and confirm its relation to the Homo species,” said Demeter, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where the tooth is temporarily based.

The tooth’s structure had common characteristics with Neanderthals, who were genetically close to Denisovans. The two species are thought to have diverged about 350,000 years ago.

But Zanolli explained that the researchers concluded it was a Denisova specimen because no Neanderthal traces have been found so far east.

For Demeter, the discovery shows that Denisovans occupied this part of Asia and adapted to a wide range of environments, from cold altitudes to tropical climates, whereas their Neanderthal cousins seemed more “specialised” in cold western regions.

The last Denisovans could have therefore met and interbred with modern humans, who passed on their genetic heritage to southeast Asia’s modern populations, in the Pleistocene epoch.

Arkansas water tower leak makes Johnny Cash silhouette appear to be urinating

May 17 (UPI) -- Johnny Cash is once again making headlines in his Arkansas hometown after a bullet hole in a "very sensitive area" of the musician's silhouette on the local water tower made the man in black appear to be urinating.

Mayor Luke Neal of Kingsland said a bullet struck the town's water tower last week, right between the legs of a Johnny Cash silhouette painted on the side of the structure.

"Somebody shot our water tower, shot the silhouette of Johnny Cash in a very sensitive area," Neal told KLRT-TV. "It's been leaking for the last almost week."

Neal told KTHV-TV the town is "losing about 30,000 gallons of water per day" at a daily cost of about $200.

The sight of Johnny Cash's silhouette spraying water onto the ground below has been drawing in tourists to witness the unusual scene.

"Just the placement of where it was at, I mean it was -- you could tell someone was trying to be funny," Neal said.

Neal said the water tower previously leaked from a bullet hole in 1993.

He said an investigation has been opened into the most recent bullet hole.

Experts advocate better red flag laws as 2022 sees 202 mass shootings

A group prays in the street on Sunday near the site of the mass shooting on Saturday at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. 

Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo

May 16 (UPI) -- There have been 202 mass shootings in the United States through the 5 1/2 months of this year, including Saturday's racially motivated attack at a Buffalo supermarket that killed 10.

One person was killed and four others were critically injured in a shooting at a California church Sunday, while two people died after an argument escalated at a Houston flea market on the same day.

Eight other mass murders have occurred, and midway through May, more than 7,100 people have been killed by gun violence.

"We are a country right now that is awash in weaponry. We have lots and lots of violent rhetoric and we have lots of weapons," Josh Horwitz, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, told UPI in a interview Monday.

"What we're seeing around the country is an unprecedented rise in shootings," said Horwitz, who pointed to a 35% increase in firearm-related homicides in 2020, the most-recent data available.


"There's an unprecedented level of gun violence in America right now. What we're seeing right now is a rise in homicide. We don't know why that's happening. We know some of the factors that can cause a rise in homicide [rates], but we don't know exactly how all those have come together."

Factors include pandemic-related job loss and subsequent economic hardships.

"The type of social dislocation that we see in the pandemic -- we see economic and housing dislocation, the type of community supports that have been in place -- have fallen away," Horwitz said.

"We know that these are risk factors, we just don't know how they're combining right now."

But it's not just economic desperation, spurred on by record inflation.

"You see an unprecedented level of gun purchasing. There are more firearms in peoples' hands and a lot of new gun owners are out there," he said.

That, combined with a political rhetoric that can at times be used to justify violence, means Americans will continue experiencing cases like Buffalo.

"We've got a much more coarse political system with open appeals to violence and that cannot help but trickle down to other people," Horwitz said, pointing to politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and former President Donald Trump.

"When some leaders talk using violence in the political system, some people take that realistically. And so there's a responsibility to really tone down our rhetoric."

Strengthening or expanding firearms laws is also essential to see any tangible changes, Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto's Center for the Study of the United States, said in an interview.

"One of the big takeaways we can glean from any mass shooting is that the people who go on to do them, overwhelmingly, buy their guns legally. They don't go through secret networks of gun traffickers," said Lee, an American who has studied gangs and gun violence in Los Angeles, publishing books on the subject.

"While mass shootings get everyone talking about the problems of gun violence, there are far more instances, quantitatively speaking, of everyday, routine conflicts that escalate into serious injuries or deaths because the wrong people have access to guns."

No system is perfect, Lee said, but one solution is so-called red flag laws that allow individuals or law enforcement to petition the court to have someone's firearm temporarily taken away, if they've shown a proclivity for or have a history of violence.

In Buffalo, shooting suspect Payton Gendron had been investigated by police after threatening a school shooting.

"In principle, red flag laws are a good thing. They empower police and law enforcement to confiscate weapons from people who are at risk of using them against themselves or others," said Lee, who is also a senior fellow with the Yale University Urban Ethnography Project.



"There are some studies showing the efficacy of efforts at the municipal level of using red flag legislation to take guns when there is credible information about a person planning an attack or using them against themselves. I don't think that any red flag law would be a perfect model but certainly, we have to try something."

Horwitz agrees.

"We need better gun laws, we need more investment in violence intervention," he said, having contributed to California's existing regulations.

"In 2014 in California, we helped develop a modern version of the extreme risk protection order that allows for family members and law enforcement to petition the court for a civil order to remove a firearm from a person who would hurt themselves or others," Horwitz said.

"These [laws] are a really important tool. But they are very young and they need to be widely implemented, and frankly, they're only in 19 states and the District of Columbia. They need to be in every state."

On a state-by-state basis, getting congruence can be challenging.

"We need to use them [laws] and state governors need to provide money for these things to work," Horwitz said, while acknowledging he does see a shift in thinking.

"Often when these [red flag] laws are proposed, you'll have rural sheriffs or law enforcement say, 'We're not going to do this.' But the reality is, when push comes to shove, and people need it, they use it. If you need to get a firearm out of their hands, this is a great tool, these extreme risk protection orders."

A sustained spate of public violence may spur even the most hardened state legislators to change their position, he said.

"I think states are moving in this direction. What we do at the center is, we provide the information and the research when there is a critical opportunity for change. Right now is a critical opportunity for change. State legislators are looking and saying, 'We don't want that to happen in our state.'"